Facebooks Face-Lift

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What's going on?

Facebook unveiled some of the biggest changes to its platform in years on Tuesday and its pretty clear that its trying to keep up with Snapchat

What does this mean?

Facebook introduced two new features on Tuesday: Facebook Direct, which lets you send private snaps to your friends, and Facebook Stories, a 24-hour collage of pictures and videos that your Facebook friends will see at the top of their News Feeds. Snapchat created its Stories feature in 2014 which unexpectedly became the upstart social networks fastest growing feature. Facebook has already created a similar feature for users of its other platforms (e.g. Instagram) but is now making it available on the main Facebook platform as well.

Why should I care?

For the stock: Snaps stock is down after Facebooks announcement.


Snap Inc. became a publicly traded company earlier this month and, after rocketing upwards, the share price has come down from its initial peak. Investors are partly worried about increased competition from Instagram/Facebook: as Facebook rolls out more Snapchat-like features, it could take away users (and therefore advertising spend) from Snapchat. Snaps stock was down by 6% on Tuesday, perhaps on the news of Facebooks new features.



The bigger picture: Social media is becoming much more visually driven.


Undoubtedly, using images and video to drive user growth and engagement has become a top priority for social media companies. Snapchat is clearly a major bet on photos and video. Meanwhile, Facebook is undergoing a massive transformation that puts video at the heart of its users experience (you have probably noticed more videos in your News Feed). Twitter is also trying to get in on the action, with live news and sports feeds.

Originally posted as part of the Finimize daily email.

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